Highly pleasing skin appearance is one of the most desired expectations from personal care products from most consumers around the world. In tropical countries where consumers generally have dark skin, there is a desire to have lighter skin appearance. In consumers who live far from the tropical countries e.g. the Caucasian people who generally have lighter skin, there is a need among such consumers to have an even tanned tone of their skin. Any exposure of the skin to sunlight, in such consumers often leads to blotchy skin, referred to as freckles and in some cases they experience hyperpigmentation in localized areas of the skin. Most consumers experience blemishes on their skin after exposure to sun, on healing of wounds or after drying up of acne. In all of the above cases, consumers rely on cosmetic solutions to their skin appearance problems.
Smooth, soft and glowing skin with even skin tone and colour is thus desired by all consumers who use personal care compositions for their skin. To provide this benefit, manufacturers from around the world have tried many approaches. One very commonly used approach is to include sunscreens or sunblocks in such cosmetic products. Sunscreens or sunblocks may be organic compounds or inorganic compounds. Sunscreens or sunblocks, at the most, only maintain the basic colour of the skin and work to prevent further darkening due to exposure to radiation.
Another approach to controlling the colour, tone and appearance of the skin is the so called skin lightening approach where chemicals are added to personal care compositions which alter the formation of melanin in the skin through biochemical transformation in the stratum corneum thereby changing the colour and appearance of the skin. This approach is capable of lightening the skin beyond the basic colour of skin. While this approach has been used successfully in many cosmetic products, researchers are still struggling to improve efficacy of skin lightening agents beyond a certain threshold.
One of the drawbacks of most skin lightening actives used so far is that they are usually synthetically prepared chemical compounds. Synthetic chemicals have over time, taken a negative connotation in the consumer's mind. Hence, many consumers are more and more, preferring actives originating from or extracted from natural sources to be used in such products.
In order to provide a solution to the several drawbacks in the art listed above, the present inventors have been working for many years on deriving actives from natural sources for various personal care benefits. They found to their utter surprise that certain fractions of a specific herb Desmodium gangeticum, which is rich in polyphenols including high levels of flavonoids, exhibit enhanced activity in a biochemical pathway viz. tyrosinase inhibition which is indicative of improved skin lightening.
JP 7 061 918 (Tsuneo, 1995) discloses a cosmetic which contains at least one type of plant solvent extract selected from the group which is formed from Vetiveria zizanoides, Hemidesmus indicus, Cymbopogon nardus, Piper longum, Piper chaba, Herpestris monnies, Cardiospermum halicacabum, Tinospora cordifolia, Desmodium gangeticum, Michelia champaka and Melaleuca leucadendron. The benefits disclosed in this patent publication are those of antioxidant properties to enable avoiding chapped skin, and to retain the luster and springiness of the skin in a favorable manner.
JP 7 082 133 (Tsuneo, 1995) discloses a cosmetic, having a good beautifying bleaching effect, comprising a cosmetic containing at least one solvent extract selected from the group consisting of Cymbopogen nardus, Desmodium gangeticum, Cardiospermum halicacabum, Muraya Koenigii and Smilax zeylanica. 
The two patent publications mentioned above have exemplified extracts of Desmodium gangeticum using solvents like water, ethanol and a 50% water/ethanol mixture. The present inventors have also prepared these extracts and found that they do not have the desired polyphenols and flavonoids in the claimed ranges of the present invention and therefore do not provide the desired high skin lightening benefits.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide for a personal care composition that comprises fractions obtained from natural sources that gives enhanced skin lightening as compared to known fractions from natural sources.